For the last couple of days, I have been attending a Board of Ordained Ministry Retreat in San Antonio that was led by Gil Rendle, a consultant for the Texas Methodist Foundation and The Alban Institute. It was a thought-provoking workshop on what our tasks are going to be for the next ten years. Who we recruit and to what kinds of churches have as much to do with what characteristics we are looking for in our new clergy.
The main focus of the event was to begin to teach us to “ask the right questions” rather than seek the right answers. Oftentimes, we slip into a technical mode and think that every problem has a known solution, and if we just do the right things, everything will work. But what happens when we don’t know how to state the problem? Everyone knows that there is a problem (declining membership and participation in mainline churches), but no one has a clear solution to this problem. Part of the reason is that we might not be asking the right question.
A church was in a two-year-long debate as to what color to paint the sanctuary. Various palettes were examined, schemes and designers were consulted. Still, the problem of what color remained. Everyone had an opinion, and yet no one agreed with anyone else. Finally, one lady spoke up at a meeting. She said, “Maybe we’re asking the wrong question. Instead of asking ‘what color’ maybe we should ask ‘for whom are we painting the sanctuary?’ If we’re painting the sanctuary for ourselves, why bother? We all have been worshiping here quite comfortably for the last several years with the paint that is already on the walls. But if we are painting the sanctuary for those who are not yet here, what color should that be?” In essence, she changed the question from a technical one (what color to paint the walls) to an adaptive one (for whom are we painting?). (For an excellent example of changing the question, see Luke 10:25-37). Unfortunately, when we don’t know what to do in any given situation, we tend to do what we do know how to do. But trying to do the same things over and over again, each time expecting different results is, according to the old saying, the definition of insanity! To work harder and harder doing the same thing will not yield a different result. It will only get us more of the same.
In essence, our Board of Ordained Ministry was asking how we go about recruiting pastors to fill the churches that are dying in our midst (a technical question). We were asking how we could work harder at doing the same things. But by asking the adaptive question, we discovered something radically different: What kind of Church does God want us to be in the next ten years? From that point of the end result, we can work backwards to determine our Board’s course of action. Do we have the answers yet? Of course not. But we are on a new course, because we are asking the right questions now.
The same can be said of our church. We must ask ourselves who are client is – is it the current membership (in which case we are self-serving) or is it those who have yet to come to the church? In reality, neither is the correct answer. Our client is the Mission of the Church, which is stated very clearly in the United Methodist Book of Discipline: “The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world” (¶120, 2008 The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church).
If our client is “the mission of the Church”, then the question then becomes, what are we doing as a church to be spent entirely toward that mission? Is there anything that we are holding back? Are we sacrificing ourselves for the mission, or are we serving a different client – perhaps, ourselves? – than the mission? By asking the adaptive question, we have to know that we are in uncharted waters. It will get messy. It will be painful. And there are more unknowns in this wilderness. But the mission of the Church in the 21st Century is straightforward: We are to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. To do anything less is, well, unfaithful to the One who has redeemed us.
Rather than stay in the same comfortable place yet be unfaithful, I would rather risk the unknown, walking in faith, following the voice of the One who calls us. Like Abram and Sarai, or like Moses and Joshua. Each risked. Each followed in faith. And each were led by the One who takes us by the hand and leads us to the Promised Land.
See you in Church!
Grace and peace,
Brad
No comments:
Post a Comment